


Motherhood

by quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:45:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>After the hospital, you take Mako to a department store.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motherhood

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about some of the ways in which motherhood isn't always fluffy or pretty or easy. 
> 
> Also, we know how mothers generally end up in Pacific Rim canon, right?

1.

You are in a beige house, alone on a beige couch in a beige-colored room in a beige house in Medowie.  

You wanted a change.  You were bored.  You didn't like your marketing job.  A casual relationship, an accidental pregnancy, a quick marriage: you were excited by romance and excitement and things being _different_.  How handsome, after all, your husband looked in his uniform.  How your mother's face lit up on seeing her first grandchild.  Now, your mother has gone home because you ordered her out of the house.  Your husband is back on deployment because -- well, he slammed the door.  You flung it open after him and stood half-in, half-out of the house, shouting horrible things about helicopter crashes and worse.   

Now, you are alone with a two week old baby.  Exhaustion and despair and hormones heightened your emotions when you were fighting with people who loved you.  Now, exhaustion and despair and fear and thirst and hunger and pain and hormones warp your perception of reality, and you fight with yourself.  When was the last time you ate? When was the last time you were in a quiet room not filled by a screaming baby?  In the moment, every word of self-recrimination feels true.  Every time you touch him, he cries harder.  Every time you try to feed him, he screams and arches away from your breast.  Your milk has technically come in, but Charlie isn't latching well.  Your nipples are cracked and sore and bleeding, and every time he puts his hungry, pulling mouth against you, it feels like someone is driving hot pokers through your chest.

Sitting on the couch, you think: what kind of mother can't feed her baby?  What kind of mother allows pain keep her from nursing?  What kind of mother says those words to her child's grandmother, and her child's father?  Aren't you supposed to love and be connected to him, no matter what?  

Charlie takes a deep breath.  It jolts you.  You look at his face.  You think, for a bewildered moment, that he is going to stop crying.  For a second, you are desperately, feverishly, intensely hoping that he will stop crying.

He doesn't.  Instead, he starts to wail, just as loud as before, maybe a little more hoarse-sounding, fists clenched, face purple with rage.  His whole body seems to shake in anger.

In one sense, there is a happy ending.  You swallow your pride and pick up the phone and call your mother; it turns out that she only drove halfway back to Sydney, and has been sitting in a parking lot for three hours, waiting and hoping.  She drives back, substantially above the speed limit.  She cries. You cry.  The two of you hug.  Your mother takes Charlie for a ride in the car, so that you can sit by yourself at the kitchen table and eat a meal of takeaway in blessed, complete silence.  You read about how Charlie is young to have colic, but that if he does, it isn't your fault. If you can't soothe him, it may not be something you can fix.

In another sense, though, it is not a happy ending: this is a world with kaiju. 

Within twenty-five years, you are dead, Angela Hansen. So is your son.  

 

2.

On the last morning of your life, you narrow the world to small things, controllable things: waking up on time.  Laying out clothes.  Waking Mako. Herding her into the bathroom and making sure she brushes her teeth and really washes her face.  You have to put the toothbrush in her hand, and you see your face in the mirror, very pale.  You put foundation and powder on.  Resolutely, fiercely, you focus on the task at hand.  Is Mako clean?  Is Mako dressed?  Has Mako put on her socks? Where are her shoes?  

At the hotel  breakfast, she spills yogurt down the front of her best dress.  When you take her back upstairs to change, she stops cooperating.  She begins to cry; you press your lips together.  She refuses to change, and instead, starts to intentionally smear the spilled yogurt over her hands, her face.  Before she can put it into her hair, you grip her between your knees.  You tell her to hold still. If she does, you can get the new dress on quickly, but she writhes and twists and tries to get away.  Yogurt is now on both of you, spread across your front and hers.    

Of all the days to choose, of all the moments to pick.  

You can't remember the last time she had a tantrum, let alone one like this.  One of her feet catches you in the left shin, and you cry out in pain.  She swings a hand for your face, and you catch her wrist.  You shout her name, louder than you intend.  You ask her if this is the way she intends to behave, but you don't let go of her with your knees.  You try to wipe her face with a wet cloth, and she starts to scream, a single, wordless, high-pitched, almost keening sound. Then, she starts to thrash, shoulders and knees working together, still screaming.  For second time that morning, you see yourself in a mirror: this time, a mirror above the desk.  This time, only a fraction of a moment, only a glimpse, because your daughter is thrashing in anger.  She tries to twist away again, but you are stronger, because she is only seven years old, and -- 

In the noise, in the emotion, the thought comes to mind: maybe she does understand that her father is dying. 

After all, unless there is a miracle, unless this experimental treatment works, soon, this hotel room will contain the only family for either of you.

You.

Her.  

Mako has, you know, always liked her father more.  They have fun together.  He puts a bokken in her hand; you ask whether her chores are done. You interrupt.  You interfere.  You are in charge of all the tiresome, ordinary things: Mako, time for dinner.  Mako, time for school.  Mako, time for bed.  Mako, you will make your clothes dirty.  

After the hospital, you take Mako to a department store.  After the department store, you take Mako to the park.  Among the trees, she pulls away from your hand, because she is proud of her new shoes and wants to tighten the straps again.  When you look up, she has gravel stuck to the front of her coat.  You are trying to keep your promise -- to be kinder, to be more loving, to be more gentle and patient and fun with your daughter who is so different from you, who is usually not interested in household things or girly things. You sense that she is trying too. Nevertheless, in the moment, you revert to old habits, reaching for her with annoyance on your face, and then -- 

In 2016, your daughter survives Onibaba, but thinking that you hear her voice, you turn and run against the stream of fleeing people.  A second of consideration.  The booming steps.  The wailing klaxon.  To one side, safety.  To the other, your child.  

You run towards the kaiju.   Was another choice ever probable?

In 2025, when your daughter cuts Otachi in half, she says, _For my family_ , and means more than just you and Masao.  Many people have had a hand in raising her. 

Nevertheless, after closing the Breach, she visits the memorial in the park.  She touches your name, cut into a stone placed where recovery crews found your body, Sumako Mori.  

 

3.

For the better part of a week, you delay telling Hermann that you are pregnant.  The two of you have been trying to conceive for years; given his difficulties and yours, this might be your only chance at a biological child.  There have been months and months, and years and years of disappointment.  Nevertheless, you look down at the stick, and you hesitate. You think back to your symptoms of tiredness and interrupted sleep and strange queasiness.  Then, you have a blood test done, because you want confirmation.  You want your thoughts and emotions to be in order before discussing it with him.  

_Is it fair?_ you say, _The world could be ending._

His hand is cold in yours.  You touch him on the shoulder.  The two of you are sitting on the bed in your shared quarters in Hong Kong: steel walls, concrete floors.  Windows like slits, with the Pacific Ocean and Breach beyond.  The sky is a wash of red, and the water looks black.  

_Even if the world doesn't end right away_ , you add.  _What kind of world would it even be?_

A mean, ugly fight follows.  Both of you are tired.  Both of you have tempers; both of you say regrettable things.  He apologizes, later, for accusing you of changing your mind.  He shouldn't have tried to dictate what you did with your body.  You tell him that you are sorry for trying to give him an ultimatum about leaving the PPDC.  You know why it is important to him.  Crimson Typhoon protects Hong Kong.  

Twelve months later, another continent, much further from the equator:  a soft English twilight, and you are in the garden with pink roses pouring over a trellis.  Inside the house, it is noisy.  Outside the house, it's a version of quiet.  You're down near the end, close to the garden shed, and Hermann comes out.  When he gets closer, you see that he has a plate of desserts, gathered up from inside.  Two kinds of baklava, each made by different branches of the family.   Your sister's laddu.  A slice of two-layered sponge with cream and strawberries.  Years ago, with money from your big commercial contract with H&M, you bought this house for your mother, who is now celebrating her eightieth birthday.  

Hermann sits down, heavily, and smiles at you. He rubs his left thigh absently; his cane is propped against his right knee.  

You look at him.  He looks back at you.  There is a small plastic-tapped garden table between the two of you; inside the house, an adult laughs loudly. 

"All right?" you say. 

"Yes," he says, and he sounds almost surprised.  All that noise, all that tumult.  Then, he holds his hands out: you smile and pass your six month old son over to your husband.  You grunt a little at the effort; Hermann sighs at the weight.  The child is a solid eighteen pounds now.  For his part, now that he has had a nap and a feed and some quiet, your son shrieks in joy and tries to grab his father's sleeves.  You start to eat dessert with a spoon, while Hermann holds his son and sings a little nursery song in German.  The two of you want Stacker as close to bilingual as possible.

In 2025, Vanessa Gottlieb, you give birth.

You live.  So does your son. So does your husband.  

So does the world.  


End file.
